Paul Cauthen had sent his band off for a break and was alone in an acoustic segment of his concert in Grand Junction, Colorado, singing “Prayed For Rain.”
Two people near the stage were apparently yelling at each other, and he could hear them.
So the Texas singer known as Big Velvet stopped in the middle of his own show to deal with them, and the crowd was right behind him.
Paul Cauthen Warned Them First and Then Called for Security
He started with a question from the stage.
“Hey, do y’all want to be quiet? Some of you guys? We’re trying to sing something,” he said.
The crowd cheered that warning. Then he stopped playing “Prayed For Rain” and went after the two concertgoers who were not paying attention.
“Hey security. You can get these two f**ers out of here right here. I’m not gonna play another f*ing note until you all get the f** out of my show,” he told them.
He made it about the people who paid to be there. “People pay money to be here,” he said. “I’ve got in ear monitors and I can hear y’all.”
A TikTok video of the moment has a caption that reads, “Cauthen kicked out two drunks in Grand Junction.” Right after the incident, he brought his band back out and skipped the rest of “Prayed For Rain.”
@anog_the_true Paul Cauthen kicks out 2 drunks at Grand Junction ,Co #paulcauthen #country #concert #live
♬ original sound – Anog The True
For You
Big Velvet Was Raised to Own the Stage, and He Has Had to Walk Away From It Before
Fans who only know him from the clip are meeting a Texas country singer known for songs like “Cocaine Country Dancing.” His persona and his deep, smooth voice go by the nickname Big Velvet, and he often performs in a fur coat and carries a cane.
Baltimore Soundstage notes that he was raised in Tyler, Texas, and that he went solo in 2016 with My Gospel, which made Rolling Stone’s Top 40 Country Records list and peaked at No. 50 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart.
Back in 2022, he told Rolling Stone that Big Velvet is something he can blame or make excuses with when he gets wild onstage, and he explained where his idea of a stage came from.
“I like to put on my cape and lean into show business. We try to be Superman. When I was a kid, I was told by my granddad, ‘This is your kingdom. When you stand up on a stage, you’re the king. You’ve got to own everything in the room and show everybody that you got the light, and you’re there to shine it.’”
That stage has not always been his to keep. A statement from his team on his social media once announced that he was stepping away from the road to return to Texas to take care of his mental and physical health, and that he had canceled a headlining tour behind his album Black on Black.
In May 2023, he canceled some concerts after his arrest for marijuana possession in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. He has since said his thyroid cancer shrank and calcified, while he refused surgery and radiation, partly to protect his voice.
His granddad told a little boy that a stage was his kingdom and that he had to own everything in the room. In Grand Junction, Paul Cauthen told security to get two people out of his show, skipped the rest of “Prayed For Rain,” and brought his band back out.
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